»There is humanity, feeling, heart. And, above all, there is poetry.« Puccini was immediately taken by the episodic description of ...

»There is humanity, feeling, heart. And, above all, there is poetry.« Puccini was immediately taken by the episodic description of artistic life in Paris written by the French journalist Henri Murger in his Scènes de la vie de bohème. The life of artists, young but poor, that emerges, the life and death of a little seamstress, was completely in keeping with his fondness for the »little things« in life. But it took two years before a libretto was completed that met his requirements. In the opera – his fourth – Puccini’s mastery of condensing reached its apex. In the rapid parlando of passages of dialogue he lays the foundation for emotionally abrupt reversal of circumstances which, combined with the music, invariably moves the audience to tears. Alfred Kirchner’s production strives to provide atmospheric local colour with intentional distancing effects. The production is back at Oper Frankfurt, with a new cast. The four scenes play out like film sequences. Unexpected editing and coincidences determine the story. Puccini's snap shops of Bohemian life in Paris in this his probably best known opera: depict details of every day life touchingly, without destracting from the sentimental melodrama. Rodolfo, Marcello, Schaunard and Colline scrape a living by earning money from their talents as »artists«. Rodolfo, a poet, falls in love with Mimì, a seamstress who has tuberculosis. While the friends celebrate christmas in the Latin quarter, Marcello manages to win back his fickle Musetta. But happiness in love does not last long for the two couples… Puccini's two librettists, Illica and Giacosa, based the opera on a novel in episodic form by Louis Henri Murger. They stayed true to the characters in the book but were free when it came to the choice of episodes and how they treated them. They organised their libretto into pictures, not acts, which are held together by Rodolfo and Mimì's love story.

Paris. Christmas Eve. Rodolfo, Marcello, Colline and Schaunard share a garret - they are penniless artists. Schaunard, a musician, has been paid by an eccentric Englishman to play until his parrot died, which took three days, and so they decide to go to the Latin quarter to celebrate. Rodolfo stays behind to finish some work. Their neighbour, Mimì, knocks on the door. They fall in love and go to join his friends. Marcello sees his former lover Musetta with her rich gentleman friend. Musetto flirts with Marcello and vanishes with him and her friends, leaving their unpaid bill for her elderly gentleman to settle. Two months later: Rodolfo and Mimì have quarelled. She seeks out Marcello to ask his advice. She overhears Rodolfo saying that he knows she is dying of consumption. A few months later: Rodolfo and Marcello are single again. Musetta arrives saying that Mimì has left her rich admirer and is very ill. The friends try and look after her during her final hours… Rodolfo is inconsolable when he finds that she has died.